Battle Of the Morning People

By James Poniewozik

You would think Jane Clayson was just another ambitious young woman who landed a job in New York City--scrambling to find an apartment, deposited (temporarily) by her employer in what is, truth be told, a pretty crappy office. Inoffensive museum posters hang on the wall; the painted metal and laminate desk is bare of much but a Poland Spring bottle and a phone; a generic screen saver plays across the monitor of a generic PC. In the middle of an interview, her phone rings. And rings. She rises apologetically and answers it herself. "It's what I'm used to doing," she says.

Clayson, 32, has a different set of demands to get used to now though. Tapped this summer as Bryant Gumbel's co-host on CBS's The Early Show, which makes its debut next Monday, the former ABC News reporter will be a key element--perhaps the key element--in her network's attempt to grab at the groaning breakfast buffet of advertising dollars that is morning television.

In a time-starved society that is waking earlier and has a slew of evening-entertainment options, the morning news shows have effectively become the new nightly news. The flagship evening broadcasts have been in a decades-long ratings tailspin, while the morning shows' mix of quick news and consumer tips has clicked with a populace that has shifted its focus from international to national news and from national to my news--my health, my kids, my money. And as viewers have embraced the shows, so have the newsmakers who want to reach them. If you have a book to sell, a campaign to run or a vast right-wing conspiracy to denounce--as Matt Lauer learned in his 1998 interview with Hillary Clinton on NBC's Today--you do the morning shows. Says Lauer: "It used to be that if there was a major statement, a politician would come out at 4 p.m., because it'd be on all the nightly newscasts at 6:30. Now they're going to give it to one of the morning shows first."

CBS's soon to be former morning show, CBS This Morning, perennially finished third in the ratings, largely because the network committed scant resources to it. Now it has tapped the high-priced Gumbel and built a sleek, $30 million Fifth Avenue studio because it can't afford not to. Situated in the only time slot in which network audiences are actually growing, the morning programs earn as much as half a billion dollars a year, led by Today, which just celebrated 200 weeks atop the ratings. (The shows are also valuable for shilling nightly newsmagazines, cable sister shows and other network siblings, as anyone who has seen cast members of Friends, Becker or NYPD Blue just happen to drop by around 8 a.m. can attest.)

Early and ABC's Good Morning America--itself relaunched in a snazzy Times Square studio in September--are trying to eat Today's rich breakfast by offering pretty much the same thing: a newsy first hour, a lighter second; glass-walled, tourist-courting studios; platonic marriages of male and female anchors (the assumption that Gumbel's partner would be female was so absolute that CBS dubbed the search Operation Glass Slipper). The producers describe their differences with vague intangibles, complete with promises to be "the show for the next millennium."

So how will Early stand out? Oh, it'll have "edge"! Which, Clayson concedes, "is somewhat hard to define." In part it seems to mean CBS hopes younger viewers will be drawn--yes, you read "CBS" and "younger viewers" in the same sentence--by Clayson and, for some reason, by a parenting segment from Adam Ant-era icons Martha Quinn (MTV) and Lisa Birnbach (The Official Preppy Handbook). "Edge" is also an apparent euphemism for the personality of Gumbel, whose no-nonsense interviewing style during his 15 years on Today was considered straight shooting by fans and abrasive by detractors. Propping his feet on a glass table in his office, which--Clayson, take note--is fabulous, Gumbel says he has relaxed, if not "mellowed," with age. But he makes no apologies for his approach. "I don't get really jocular and laugh about it when I ask somebody about the defense budget. I'm sorry." His success may hinge on whether Clayson can provide the compensating amiability that his former Today partners Jane Pauley and Katie Couric did.

Early executive producer Steve Friedman (once Gumbel's boss at Today) spins Gumbel's rep as a change from Today's current Cheers-like bonhomie. But the real race is between Early and GMA, which has its marquee lineup in Diane Sawyer and Charles Gibson--brought in this year after ratings dived in 1998--and which enjoyed a boost when it moved into its new set. Like Today in Rockefeller Center, GMA uses New York City's tourist appeal, drawing crowds to its first-floor studio for features like a recent "town meeting" with presidential candidate John McCain. (The Disney-designed set recalls Las Vegas' New York, New York hotel, creating the dissonant sensation that one is standing in a reproduction of Times Square when one actually is in Times Square.) But the show's hosts are basically high-priced temps, committed only through May. The eagerly combative Friedman--he toys with a Wrigley Field commemorative baseball as he talks, as if begging "Steve Friedman is ready to play hardball" metaphors--senses an opening: "We have a good chance of taking over second when Diane Sawyer leaves."

GMA executive producer Shelley Ross is eager to downplay that speculation. "Diane and Charlie are not going anywhere," she says. "They're enjoying what they're doing." Perhaps, but they're also doing 20/20, a tough demand on top of waking when it's time to make the doughnuts. "I love the broadcast," Gibson says, "but it does wear you down."

Lauer recognizes that Today, lead or no, must change in order to thrive--"If the competition copies your widget, you have to come up with a better widget"--even as ABC seeks permanent hosts and CBS's crew gets its footing. But even a relatively small boost for Early could justify the investment. "The monetary difference between first and third place in the morning," says CBS News president Andrew Heyward, "is dramatically different from at night." Still, Gumbel and Clayson have a tough job ahead, with little time to prepare as CBS scrambles to finish its new set. "It's like taking your first draft and putting it on the front page," says Gumbel. Clayson, a Mormon who abstains from coffee, will manage that early-morning wakeup using an alarm clock given her by Pauley. But she might want to test it first. Pauley, after all, anchored Today. And those morning rivalries die hard.